[scottious]

Parents need reliable childcare. A teenager or aging parents can't fill this gap reliably. I need somebody to watch the kids most days from 8 until 4. A high schooler won't be able to do this. My in-laws who live 1.5 hours away and have mobility issues (plus their own lives) can't always do that.

I agree we need strong community in close proximity, but still people need to travel to destinations a few miles from their houses sometimes. Biking is a great (this is my primary form of transportation) but even I know biking and walking cannot fill every transportation need. We need the trifecta of biking/walking/transit to ween ourselves off of cars and develop denser communities with more people to interact with in our day-to-day lives.

[maerF0x0]

> can't fill this gap reliably

Except they did... for centuries ?? How can we claim that relying on community and a network of people is unreliable when it was the defacto solution for as long as we've existed?

[s1mplicissimus]

Historically, people wouldn't even move out of the village, never mind across the continent. So it was a bit easier to get the kids to the grannies.